overlap

I'm a few days behind, so this is going to wrap up a bit too much in one hit! * Monday night I saw Jonathan Richman. Now, it would be easy to stick JR in the pigeonhole marked novelty act, but anyone who can do half his songs in a variety of languages - we had bits of four, I think - and who can put down his guitar and start dancing around like your second favourite drunken uncle at a wedding when the rest of his band is nothing but a guy playing drums probably needs a category all to himself. Sure, he's a bit quirky, but he's also desperately endearing and remarkably funny, so the evening goes down as fabulous entertainment and a warm feeling half the way home. Getting in in the early hours hasn't helped the rest of my week, though that's nobody else's fault but mine. * Tuesday night I saw Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman doing their acoustic Yes songs show. The idea apparently came about after Rick was booked to do a show somewhere like Cuba, and turned up to find a grand piano instead of his usual rack of piano electronics. Rick said he couldn't do it and they should cancel the show, they said he would do the show or they would cancel him in a rather serious way. So like the old pro that he is, he did the show, liked the experience, and wanted to apply the idea to slightly different things. Squeaky Jon Anderson comes across like Fotherington Thomas by way of California - he sa hello birds, hello sky, hello everyone I wanna do a song about the power of the spirit of love that surrounds us every day. I've always been a big fan of skill, of talent, of capability. In fact that's always been my trouble on a different front, I fall for people's intellectual capacity all too readily, but that's another story. Anyway, the fact remains that Rick Wakeman can play anything, sometimes in a way that even watching his fingers I struggle to follow. So his Nursery Rhyme Concerto is especially good fun, as are numerous classic Yes songs, and the sprinkling of good humoured repartee and impeccable comedy timing made for another good fun night. * Wednesday evening I've had the pleasure of seeing Martyn Joseph and Show Of Hands. Now, SOH came to me fairly recently via a radio show, but they've been out there doing their thing for decades, from what I can gather without bothering to research properly. I may have missed a trick somewhere along the way in their case - it's been a long time snce I saw someone do something that put a shiver down my spine, and a lot of people get the chance to try, as you may gather. I may well come back to Show Of Hands when I don't have my bed calling me quite so loudly, but they are on tour around the UK for the next six weeks and are well worth seeing. If you like the sound of a mixture of modern and traditional folk music, of the odd sea shanty with a contemporary attitude, of at least two of fiddle, guitar and mandocello, and double bass, and some exceptionally powerful songs, of the average working person and of places and tales from their Devon origins, I can thoroughly recommend them. In fact if you are even remotely interested I can point you to where you can have a bit of a listen for yourself, I'm that impressed. And as to why I may sometimes feel I have reason to be concerned about my diet, I've made an egg and bacon sandwich since I came in, but other than chips from the shop yesterday, that's the first hot food I've had since saturday and even that was a pizza. It's part of the problems that come with trying to pack too much into the time, that cooking some healthy, nutritious meal while I'm on the M4 on my way to another show is somewhat out of the question. And that's just not a sustainable way to live in the long term, I know.